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Egypt has provided Britain with confidential information about eight local businessmen who have accounts in the UK, in the hopes that Britain would freeze their funds, said a judicial source.

The figures include former Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid and former Finance Minister Youssef-Boutros Ghali.

The same source told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Thursday said that this information would help Britain prevent the suspects from transferring any cash abroad.

Another source cautioned that giving this information to the UK might actually allow that government to seize the suspects’ funds without repatriating the cash to Egypt. An official source from the public prosecutor’s office countered those claims, asserting that a British delegation visited Cairo at the beginning of the week and pledged to use the information only for the purposes of freezing the accounts in question.

A few days ago, a delegation from the public funds prosecution held intense negotiations with the British authorities in London regarding the repatriation of funds illegally transferred to the United Kingdom by officials from the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak.

Cairo has so far failed to retrieve any funds smuggled abroad since the 25 January revolution broke out in 2011.